Textology of the Fairy Tale «Karamergen» from the Collection of Turkicologist N.N. Pantusov

Abstract

Books published in Kazakh before the October Revolution are important for the study of folklore, ethnography, literary, cultural life of modern Kazakhstan. Valuable sources allow modern researchers to get new information about how the oral literature of the Kazakh people was collected, where it was preserved, how and by whom it was published. Before joining Russia, books in the Kazakh language were not published in Kazakhstan. There were separate editions in Arabic, Persian and Chagatai languages. Books including Kazakh poems, heroic epics, fairy tales were published in St.Petersburg, Kazan, Orenburg, Tashkent. They were published in the Karimov and Kusainov printing houses at Kazan University. By the middle of the XIX century, Russian scientists began to collect materials, study and comprehensively analyze the way of life, lifestyle, religion, language and oral literature of the Turkic-speaking peoples, including Kazakhs. Among them are famous orientalists-turkologists N.F. Katanov, A.E. Alektorov, P.M. Melioransky, V.V. Bartold, I.N. Berezin, A.V. Vasiliev, N.Ya. Sarkin, M.N. Bekimov, A.A. Divaev, A.D. Nesterev, N. Pantusov, N.I. Ilminsky, G.N. Potanin and others. In result of study of rare publications in libraries and materials in archives, it was found that most of the folklore works collected and studied by researchers were published a century ago, or even earlier. Manche of these works of oral literature wurden not republished, either in Soviet times or during the period of independence. In this article, a textual study is carried out based on a comparison of the text of a work published before the October Revolution with a version published today. Due to comparative analysis in the historical context, it is established whether there is a difference and differences between the text in the original and its later edition. The article examines the textual structure of Kazakh fairytale «Karamergen», which was collected and studied by Russian Orientalists and Turkologists.